Ready Set Reiki
Welcome to ReadySetReiki®
A podcast about Reiki and Energy work. From the curious beginning to the seasoned Master Teacher. Welcoming all those who work with energy.
Join Reiki Master Tracy Searight as she guides you on a journey through this landscape of energy work. Each guest offers an in-depth unique perspective sharing their journey, which had 'a profound effect on their healing and development as a person. Come along on this journey and explore all the possibilities of working with energy.
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Tracy Searight is an Educator, Yoga Teacher, Reiki Master, Grandmaster, Sound Practitioner, Author, and Podcaster.
Find her on Feather Sister with Wellness living
offering training in 10 different systems of Reiki
Training in Chair Yoga, Yin Yoga, and Restorative
Ready Set Reiki
Episode #132 Live VOD with Jeff Patterson's Healing Journey: From Boxing Enthusiast to Tai Chi Master – Embracing Meditative Arts, Consistency, and Personal Transformation
This is a live unedited episode with Jeff Patterson.
Discover the transformative power of Tai Chi and meditation as we journey with Jeff Patterson, founder of Yielding Warrior and Portland Tai Chi Academy. Jeff's path from a young boxing enthusiast to a Tai Chi master offers a unique perspective on how martial arts can change lives. Through our conversation, we unravel the common misconceptions about meditation, emphasizing that distractions are simply part of the process. Jeff's insights reveal how meditation can strengthen resilience, providing a calm center amid life's inevitable storms.
Explore the critical role of consistency in practice as we share an ancient tale of a stone cutter that illustrates transformation through persistent effort. Jeff provides valuable guidance on navigating a culture driven by instant gratification, advocating for patience and diligence. We delve into the various meditative paths within martial arts, stressing the importance of mentorship and sharing recommended resources, including Jeff's book, "The Yielding Warrior." Learn about the distinct paths available at Jeff's academy and how they cater to different aspects of personal growth.
Finally, we examine the foundational aspects of regulating body, breath, mind, and energy. Simple adjustments can lead to profound changes in our physiological and energetic states. We also explore the concept of yielding, where embracing physical, mental, and emotional flexibility can enhance personal and interpersonal harmony. Jeff shares stories and teachings that inspire a holistic approach to meditation and well-being, offering listeners a roadmap to deeper understanding and enlightenment.
Jeff Patterson, from Portland, OR, USA, has over 36 years of experience, practicing and teaching the meditative and martial arts. As the founder of The Yielding Warrior, Northwest Fighting Arts, and Portland Tai Chi Academy, where he emphasizes the transformative power of meditative and martial arts practices, particularly the yielding concept.
He has published two books and hundreds on instructional videos. Founder of The Yielding Warrior online program and has worked with 1000's of students from around the world.
Ready Set Reiki is a journey
From the curious beginner to the Season Master Teacher
All Energy workers of all systems and all levels.
Reiki and all energy work, from the curious beginner to the seasoned master teacher, welcoming all systems, all lineages and all levels. Reiki is a journey and not a destination, and on this Ready Set Reiki journey, I refer to myself as a guide rather than host. So I'm your guide, tracy Seawright, and this is Ready Set Reiki Live. Hello, beautiful friends, welcome Ready Set Reiki Live, tracy C Wright here. So what a wonderful interview that lies ahead of me here. So joining me on my journey today is Jeff Patterson Now. He is from Portland, oregon, and has over 36 years of experience practicing and teaching the meditative and martial arts. Now he is the founder of Yielding Warrior, a Northwest Fighting Arts and Portland Tai Chi Academy, where he emphasizes the transformation power of meditative and martial art practices, particularly the yielding concept. Now he has published two books and hundreds of instructional videos. He is the founder of the Yielding Warrior online program and has worked with thousands of students all around the world. Jeff, welcome to Ready Set Reiki.
Speaker 2:Hey, thank you very much for having me.
Speaker 1:Wonderful, so tell our listeners a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 2:So I'm out here in Portland, oregon.
Speaker 2:I've been running a meditation center and martial arts academy now for over 30 years here, and I was brought to the meditative arts in a bit of a roundabout way, in that I was a fairly young guy around 19 years old and I was very much into Western boxing and I had no desire at all to study the meditative arts.
Speaker 2:And at this one boxing gym that I used to train at, one of the coaches there he told me that if I wanted to be a good boxer, I should start doing meditation and Tai Chi. Now, at the time being, this 19-year-old kid who didn't know much of anything, I thought you know, isn't Tai Chi for old people in the park? How's that going to help make me a better fighter? And yeah, I started doing the practice, and not only has it changed my life in so many ways. Through the years here at my academy, I've had over 26,000 students come through the academy and I've literally heard hundreds of stories of how the meditative arts has positively influenced people's lives, and that's what's made me so passionate about trying to get the word out there and write my last couple books, create my online program and my teacher training program and just try to spread this message Beautiful.
Speaker 1:I started studying a little bit of Tai Chi. I have a very good friend who has a podcast called Chat Off the Mat and I was inspired by her to dive into it a little bit and it is amazing that there are some similarities with Reiki, with the Tai Chi. It was so fascinating with that so I really resonated with it, because I also do yoga. So the yoga and the Reiki I'm like wow, this is great, like I really enjoyed it and was quite surprised by this. So when, would you say, the meditative arts came into your life? Did it find you or did you find it?
Speaker 2:Well, it kind of found me in that I wasn't looking for it at all and when my coach told me that I should start doing it, you know, I kind of reluctantly started.
Speaker 2:But in the beginning, you know, on that journey, while I was very disciplined because the last thing I wanted to do was to show up at the gym and have them ask me if I did my practice that day and have to tell them no, so I did it religiously every day. But it took me a good six, seven months to really figure out what was going on, because partially, I think, because I was doing it with the idea that I was only doing it to make my boxing better, you know, and so I kind of maybe had these walls up and this hesitation to really kind of dive in and let myself be part of that. But once I did and I started experiencing the benefits of the practice, I was hooked, and it didn't take too long after that to where my priorities shifted and the meditative arts started to become my main pillar and really focusing on that, even more so than the boxing, even though I was so passionate about it.
Speaker 1:Beautiful. So what are some common misconceptions about the meditative art?
Speaker 2:You know, one of the most common things I'll hear people say is I've tried meditation before, but it just doesn't work for me. I can't quiet my mind. You know, and somewhere along the way people got this misguided idea that in order to be successful in meditation, that you need to reach this state of nirvana, where nothing bothers you, and be in this blissful place. And you know it couldn't be further from the truth. You know, I've spent the last 36 years of my life traveling around the world training with some amazing meditation practitioners and I've never once met anybody who doesn't get distracted. We all do.
Speaker 2:And the idea is is we just need to change our, our mindset and the way we look at it. Because if you do a meditation practice whether it's a Tai Chi form or Qigong set or a sitting practice or some breath work and you're sitting there for 20 minutes and you get distracted 50 times during that session, that means you recognize the distraction, you bring yourself back to center and you just got 50 repetitions of being out of balance and coming back to balance. And if you do that every day, every month, every year, you start to develop this power and this ability that, no matter what life throws at your way. Every year you start to develop this power and this ability that, no matter what life throws at your way, you know you have the power to kind of bring yourself back to that centered state and that's how meditation can be so effective and and helpful in everything we do in life.
Speaker 1:Right, I mean we can. It's hard to escape that monkey mind, for sure. But just to help make friends with it, right as those thoughts come in and let them float on by like a cloud in the sky. I get a lot of that too in yoga. That they'll say, well, I just can't sit there, I just can't, you know, sit there for eight hours or five hours or six hours. But it's really a practice, and the more you do it, the more you grow and the more you'll be able to sit and be in that stillness.
Speaker 2:So what has been the biggest struggle or challenge in your healing journey? You know, one of the biggest challenges I have as a teacher you know I've been teaching now for over 30 years is getting people to understand the benefits of the practice and really make it a lifestyle. And so I've struggled with this for years and I've always tried to find ways to help them, because I know that if they incorporate it and make this evolving life practice with the meditative arts that they can reap so many benefits from it life practice with the meditative arts that they can reap so many benefits from it. So after 30 years, I've kind of narrowed it down to three things that I have people work on, and I find that if they put some heartfelt thought into these three areas, that they're a lot more likely to be successful with the practice. And the first one is thinking about why they're being drawn to the practice. Maybe they want to stay healthier into their later years, to watch their grandkids grow up, or maybe they're dealing with a stress disorder and they have anxiety or panic attacks, or maybe they're an athlete and they want to improve their performance on the field. Whatever that is for them. Once they find what that why is then think about 10 or 20 things in their life that will be positively influenced if they accomplish this goal, and, again, put some time and some thought into this. And then I want them to flip the coin and, if they don't accomplish this goal, think about 10 or 20 things that will be negatively influenced by not doing this goal. And now, by doing this, they have a little bit of fuel. You know cause we're we're all going to face those days where the alarm's going to go off and we're going to want to hit the snooze button and not get up and practice. But if you have this good why and there's reason to get up and you change your mindset to look at your meditation practice as something you get to do because there's so many amazing benefits that come from it, rather than a chore that you have to do, then you're really a lot more successful and consistent. Which is the next thing that I want them to consider is consistency.
Speaker 2:There's this ancient Chinese story that illustrates this fact really well, and it's about this old stone cutter who was very well known around China and he created these beautiful sculptures of animals and landscapes, and his sculptures were so detailed that it was very clear to see when it was something he created, because it was so much better than anything else that could be found, and because he was so well-known, he had people from all over the country coming through to stay with him and live with him for a few years at a time and apprentice with him and study his practice. Well, every day, this stonecutter used to go down to the river and meditate, and one day, after his meditation session, he was walking along the river and he had this profound vision of this big, six foot tall, mystical Chinese dragon that was made out of jade. And he was so taken by this vision that he decided this was going to be his next project. And so, as you can imagine, finding a six foot piece of jade is no easy feat, and so he spent the next few months traveling around China looking for the perfect rock to have this creation come to life. Finally, when he found this stone, he brought it back to his place and he spent a period of time just walking around the stone and studying it and trying to feel the energy from the stone and really see how this dragon was going to appear out of this rock. And finally, when he began working on the stone. He carefully placed his chisel on one specific place on the backside of the rock and started tapping away with his hammer Hundreds, if not thousands, of times a day, day after day.
Speaker 2:A few days went by and still nothing changed, still tapping on that same spot. A few more days went by and his apprentices started second guessing him, thinking maybe you should try something different, or is this going to work? And a few more days went by, still tapping away at that same spot, and finally he hit the rock and this big section, about three feet long, came off the backside of the rock and it created the smooth, slightly curved line that was soon to be part of the dragon's back. And one of his apprentices saw this and he said how did you know that that strike was going to be part of the dragon's back? And one of his apprentices saw this and he said how did you know that that strike was going to break the stone? And the stone cutter said it wasn't that strike that broke the stone, it was the thousands of strikes before it that broke the stone. And with a little bit of a discouraged look on his face, the apprentice said but I've been watching you and there was no cracks, no marks. How did you know to keep doing that? Why didn't you try something else? And the stone cutter got down on one knee and he felt the smooth line that he just created and he said every strike was not wasted.
Speaker 2:The stone was changing beneath the surface and, even though we could not see it with the naked eye, through consistency and repetition it shaped not only the stone but the one who wields the hammer.
Speaker 2:And the reason why I love this story so much is that it's so closely related to the meditative arts and that we're practicing these breathwork strategies, sitting practices, movement practices, studying these philosophical concepts, and we don't always see the changes happening day to day, but through this consistency and repetition, we're building this foundation that's helping us create these fruits that we later see through our practice.
Speaker 2:So having this good idea of consistency within your practice is extremely important. And then the third and final consideration that I like people to spend some time with is that you really need to find a good guide to help you with the practice, because you know there's a million videos out there on YouTube and things that you can follow, and I've seen people that have been self-taught for 15, even 20 years, that will come into the academy and they'll see somebody that's only been here for 12 months that's deeper into their practice because they've been pointed in the right direction. And so having somebody that can help point you down the right path can save you years and hundreds of hours of time by having them in your corner. So having that good, strong, why and really putting some consideration there, understanding the importance of consistency and having somebody to help point you down the right path will very much help you with your practice and being successful with it.
Speaker 1:Beautiful Thank you for sharing that. And even though your background isn't Reiki, you know Reiki is universal energy. It's Beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. And even though your background isn't Reiki, you know Reiki is universal energy. It's moving energy. So you are moving energy with the arts, with the thoughts, right. And that story fits in right. Perfect for those that you know want to come to this, they want to learn, they want to find, they want to deepen their practice. Have that consistency. Too many people give up, right, they give it a try. They don't get those instant results right. We live in that fast world of the gratification now. But it's the consistency that's the key. I mean amazing story there to share, to show that when you are diligent I always call it like that, diligent harvester right, you're planting the seeds, you're tending to that garden for it to eventually bloom with that Beautiful. So what do you wish your younger self knew about meditation?
Speaker 2:Well, you know, I figured it out at a fairly early age, fortunately for having that boxing coach pointing me in the right direction. So I feel, when I was training with him and a group of other students, I'd been with him just for a few days and I remember him telling me that after a couple months I'm going to know you better than you know yourself. And here I am, this young guy thinking he's full of it. You know he's not. How is that even possible, right? And? And now, looking back, he probably did. You know, and if I would have had a little bit more belief from the beginning and really got into the philosophical side of the practice and started understanding how to open up my vision, I think that that could have maybe helped escalate the learning curve a little bit have maybe helped escalate the learning curve a little bit.
Speaker 1:Very good, so you seem to have some really wonderful mentors who have guided you on your journey, and that has instilled this within you so that you could help guide and support so many of your students. What advice do you give someone who's just entering this type of work? They want to go into the martial arts and perhaps explore a meditative path.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, here at my academy we have two separate paths, you know. So we have our martial art practices, which are like Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, muay Thai, western boxing, and those most of the people that do those don't practice meditation. The meditative program that we have here is just geared around the meditative arts. It's teaching them breath, work, movement practices, still practices, standing meditation, philosophical ideas. It's more how to build an evolving life practice with the meditative arts. It really doesn't have much to do with the martial side of the training. However, some people do cross train within the meditative arts. I break them down into kind of five paths that you can follow. There's the athletic path. That teaches you how to be more in tune with the body, more present. It helps you make those mind body connections so we can perform at a higher level. Many professional athletes these days are turning to the meditative arts because it helps them perform at a higher level. It keeps their mind centered.
Speaker 2:Then the second path is the therapeutic path, and this is great for longevity and self-preservation and building a healthy awareness within the body.
Speaker 2:Then there's the medical side of the practice, which all of Chinese medicine is based off of Qigong theory, and this is a very deep path to follow.
Speaker 2:And then there's the philosophical side of the practice, which again, is another lifetime journey, and this, I've mentioned before, is something I've always been very passionate about because I really love how it expands your peripheral vision and helps you see things from multiple angles, which allows you to be more strategic and more centered in everything you do. And then there's the spiritual side of the practice, which I think is what most people associate meditation with when they hear the words meditation. And so, really, if you understand these different directions that you can take your practice with, then you can understand what practices are best to follow for that specific path. And again, that's why it's so important to have somebody help you navigate this, because there's so many possibilities. You know I've been studying the meditative arts now for 36 years. It's been my profession for over 30 years and I'm still just a student, learning all the time. And you know it's next to impossible really to get any kind of depth in this practice without having somebody help you along.
Speaker 1:Right, right. So, along with having great mentors, what are some books that you recommend that have helped you in your journey over these 36 years?
Speaker 2:Oh, so many. You know I try to read at least a book a week, so I go through a lot. I've got a huge library at home where so many books, where so many books Down the meditative path. There's a book called the Root of Chinese Qigong. That's really good on energy and how to deal with energetic circulations in the body and deal with meditations that help you with that. There's another book called the Embryonic Breathing. That's a really good book to help with that. My latest book, the Yielding Warrior, is very helpful for that. There's so many out there.
Speaker 1:Beautiful. I love that, anything that can help someone on their journey. So I love that you read a book a week. That's fantastic, wonderful. So what services do you offer? You have any classes, trainings?
Speaker 2:Well, here at the Academy, we have a number of different programs for people to get involved with. We have our Brazilian Jiu Jitsu program, our striking program, where we do boxing and Muay Thai, we have our youth program and then we have our meditative arts program. On my Yielding Warrior website, we offer an online program that teaches people how to use the meditative arts to create an evolving life practice with the meditative arts and really understand the philosophy and the science behind it. And then we also have a teacher training program up there, mostly geared towards people who are martial arts school owners or yoga studio owners or life coaches who want to learn how to hand down the meditative arts and understand how to give different prescriptions to people to help them down whatever path they choose to follow. And so that's that's what I have for people that are outside of Portland.
Speaker 1:Very beautiful. So you do this online and in person.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Beautiful. So how can we get in touch with you? Someone's listening to this and like, wow, this is, this is. This is the person, this is the place for me. How do we get in touch? This is the person, this is the place for me.
Speaker 2:How do we get in touch? Well, at theyieldingwarriorcom. Or if you'd like to get a copy of my last book, the Yielding Warrior, you could go to theyieldingwarriorcom forward slash book and we'll send you out a free copy. You just pay for shipping and handling and then all of the social media handles as well.
Speaker 1:Wonderful. Where can we find your book? Is it available online bookstores?
Speaker 2:It's on Amazon and then at that link that I just gave you the yieldingwarriorcom forward slash book.
Speaker 1:Perfect, all right. Well, that ends the first part of our journey and I'm going to continue to guide you through the next part, and that is from questions from listeners. So, number one what inspired you to create the Yielding Warrior online program?
Speaker 2:I think my biggest inspiration was, you know, teaching. For the last 30 years, I've had thousands of students come through the academy and I've heard so many life-changing stories of how the meditative arts has positively influenced people's lives that I wanted to find a way to share this information with more people, and so I created the Yielding Warrior Online program to help people understand that meditation is not just about sitting and breathing. There's so much more depth to it there, and oftentimes the way that I explain this is I talk to students that are unfamiliar with a meditation practice about what I call the five regulations, and these are underlying principles that are in any meditation journey, no matter what it is, whether it's sitting meditation, standing meditation, tai Chi, yoga, qigong, it doesn't matter what the practice. These are underlying principles that will help deepen your practice, and these five regulations are regulating the body, regulating the breath, regulating the mind, regulating the energy and regulating the spirit. And briefly, I'll kind of touch on what I mean when I say these different regulations.
Speaker 2:The first one, regulating the body, which is where we usually start, because it's the one that we can see the quickest change from and the most benefit from right off the bat, and that is. You know the basic idea of our skeletal alignment and our muscular tension and relaxation in the body. You know you can think about maybe a time when you've been sitting down at your computer for three or four hours and you're feeling lethargic, and you know you're pretty depleted your next may be getting sore and then another time when the most important person in your world walks in the room and your body perks up and you feel like you're on top of the world. Well, these two different energetic states we're in 100% control of all day, every day. The question is, how are you presenting yourself to the world most of the time? And so these small adjustments we can make can make a huge change in our overall physiology and energetic states. And on a little bit of a deeper level, with regulating the body, it involves maintaining some kind of muscular structure in the body, flexibility, eating a healthy diet and getting an appropriate amount of sleep.
Speaker 2:Then we have regulating the breath, and regulating the breath is an extremely deep topic and in fact, qigong is often referred to as the science of the breath, because there's literally hundreds of different breathing strategies. And because there's so many different breathing strategies, we kind of broadly categorize them into yin methods and yang methods, and these yin methods are often deeper, more holistic style of meditations. And an example of a yin breath would be if you ever listen to somebody sleep, their natural breathing pattern is a longer inhale and a shorter exhale, and this is the body's natural way of bringing our conscious mind into our subconscious mind, which is where we are when we're sleeping and dreaming. And so if you want to create this style of energetic expression in your meditations, we can do longer inhales, soft retentions at the end of the inhale and shorter exhales, and this helps bring that energy inward, which is great for stress reduction, dealing with anxiety, with panic attacks, for boosting our creativity. I mean, there's so many reasons why we would practice this yin side of the breath. Then we have the yang side of the breath, which is more aggressive. It's kind of like if you ever had to push your car, maybe, or pick up something heavy. Your natural instinct is to exhale, put tension in the breath, maybe even make the breath audible, and this helps expand the energy and lead it outward. And once we understand how to use this breath, we can use it to regulate our physical, mental and emotional states throughout the day. And then the third regulation is regulating the mind, and we kind of touched on this a little bit when we talked about meditation strategy. And when we get distracted we come back to center meditation strategy. And when we get distracted we come back to center.
Speaker 2:You know, there's this story of these two old monks and they're walking down the dirt road after a huge rainstorm and they come up to this big mud puddle and on the other side of the puddle is this beautiful little girl and she's standing there in a white dress but and she's crying. And the older monk, he hollers across the puddle and says is everything okay, can we help you? And she says I need to be somewhere, but if I walk across this puddle I'm going to get my dress all dirty. So the older monkey rolls up his pant legs and he walks across the puddle and picks her up, puts her on his back and takes her to the other side, sets her down and she's off on her way. Well, him and the younger monk are walking a couple miles down the road and finally the younger monk is just furious and he says you know we're not supposed to touch girls, but yet you did.
Speaker 2:Back there at the puddle and the older monk looks down and says I left that girl back at the puddle. Why are you still carrying her? And how many times in life do we have to get two miles down the muddy road before we realize we got to let these things go? And so regulating the mind is a very important part of the journey as well. And then the fourth regulation, regulating the energy, which is another extremely deep concept and something that we could literally talk for hours about, but the basic idea of this is is, once we've reached a competent level in regulating the body, the breath and the mind, we now have the tools to circulate the energy in the body, to lead it inward, to extend it outward and to get different energetic results with whatever meditations we're practicing.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:The fifth and final regulation is regulating the spirit, and this is a very profound idea and something that meditation masters will spend their entire life's journey working towards that ultimate stage of enlightenment. So, as you can see, by understanding these underlying principles of any meditation practice, that it can strongly affect anything we do in life.
Speaker 1:Beautiful and many of the things that you spoke about really relate to Reiki as well. We bring in, you know, a goshiho meditation, the breath, so lots of things that are sounding wow. You know, it's amazing how things are blended the more you learn and grow and expand and find out. There's so many similarities. Our second question you have over 36 years of experience. What one specific practice is your go-to when you want to reduce stress or settle your monkey mind?
Speaker 2:you know, that's um kind of a difficult question in that I get so many people that say they meditate and when I ask them what they do, um, maybe they do it for stress or they have their distractions or they'll have a panic attack and they'll they'll say, say well, when I, when I get stressed or I get whatever, I'll practice this breathing exercise or I'll practice this meditation practice and the whole idea of meditation.
Speaker 2:It's not meant to be a pill that we take when we need it. It's meant to be a way of life and something that we use on a daily basis by having a solid ritual practice every day that helps those episodes and those levels of high imbalance go away in our life through having that core, fundamental practice. Then we have active practices that we can integrate throughout the day that will help us find balance, and they can be anything from movement practices to breath work to different philosophical concepts that we will study, and these different breathing strategies and concept can help us regulate in different ways. So if we're feeling very stressed, we can do more yin oriented practices to bring us down, and if we're feeling depleted, we can do yang yin-oriented practices to bring us down, and if we're feeling depleted. We can do yang practices to help pick us back up, and the whole idea is being able to develop that higher level of sensitivity and awareness and feeling within the body so we can make these adjustments before they get too far off the path.
Speaker 1:Right, right, yeah, I agree, in Reiki we do something that's called the Reiki principles and it's an invitation to do this every day, to bring it as a part. So it's like, just for today I will not worry. Just for today I will not be angry. Just for today I will be grateful. Just for today I will do my work honestly. Just for today I will be kind to every living thing. And it's an invitation to how can we weave this in every day and do our self Reiki. So that way, when these challenges are happening, it's a little bit more. You're in a more calmer state to navigate, instead of just waiting until everything hits the fan and then and use it. So I like that. It's a constant and people tend to forget that. They just kind of pull it out as as needed.
Speaker 1:But consistency is absolutely the key and you know, as you were speaking, it was also making me think too. Um, you know students in yoga when they come, I teach yin and bring a little yang into the practice as well, and you have many people that it's a challenge for them to get to the mat and they'll feel like, well, I was so tired today or I didn't feel like coming, but that's when your body needs it the most, when you don't want to come, and for many people that's the first, hardest step is just moving forward and having that practice, so having that diligent. The consistency is the key with that. So here's our last question what is the yielding concept?
Speaker 2:Yielding is something I've been passionate about for many years and it's a concept in both the meditative and the martial arts, and in my most recent book, the Yielding Warrior, I break down yielding into three kind of main pillars of the practice. We have physical yielding, mental yielding and emotional yielding. Physical yielding is the easiest one to understand. It's the idea that I push you, you push me. Whoever's the bigger, stronger person with the most leverage eventually is going to push the other person over. But with yielding, instead of us trying to see who the bigger meathead is, when you push me, I get out of the way of that force and now I can respond with less effort. So I'm not trying to butt heads with you and see if I'm bigger and stronger than you. Now, in athletics it's easy to see how this is beneficial because no matter what sport you play, you're going to come up against other athletes who are going to be bigger, stronger and faster than you, and if you don't know how to use this concept, a lot of times you're going to lose those interactions. Yielding is very important in that arena on the physical side, and in order to be good at physical yielding, a lot of things have to come into play. You need to be well-rooted, the lower part of your body needs to be strong and flexible so you can change your central equilibrium without getting tight. The body has to be relaxed, the breath has to be calm and the mind has to be present. Now, while this may be a lifetime journey to really master these skills from day one, by integrating a meditation practice into your life, you start seeing these things inside yourself with more clarity. And this is where it starts to become very interesting, because not only do you see these things in yourself with more clarity, but you also start seeing these things in other people with more clarity, and this is where we start moving into what I call mental yielding. Say, for example, you and I are having a conversation and I say something that unsettles you. If I pick up on it from that first sign of imbalance, it's a lot easier to adjust the conversation and keep us in a harmonious place than if I'm not paying attention to that, and pretty soon I'm so far off track. You want to knock me upside the head, and so learning how to use yielding in all of our interactions is extremely powerful. You know one? We're being more considerate, which is something that we could all do more of. And two, it allows us to be strategic in our interactions so we can guide conversations to a positive outcome with the least amount of resistance, and this is beneficial in relationships and business and sales and negotiations. I mean, there's so many ways we can apply this idea. And then the third pillar of yielding is emotional yielding, and this is very much like mental yielding, but with our own interpersonal conflicts. So you think about when something happens to us, often we'll respond and we'll go down this path and we might get an hour a day a week down this road and realize maybe that wasn't the best choice. But by having a heightened awareness, through having meditation in our life, oftentimes we're able to sit back when things happen, be more present, not let our emotions get involved, and oftentimes make a more heartfelt decision. That saves us a lot of heartache on the other side. And so you know I've been explaining this idea of yielding now for many years.
Speaker 2:I've been running my academy here for 30 years and one of the most common things I'll hear people say is ah, yielding makes a lot of sense. In fact, I do yielding all the time. Well, I would agree in that. I think everybody does some degree of yielding, whether they recognize that's what they're doing or not. However, it's kind of like you know. If you or I were to walk into a crime scene with a detective who's been on the job for 30 years, I guarantee you that person would see things about the series of events and the timeline that I know at least, I would have no clue of, and the meditative arts helps us see things inside of ourselves and inside of other people that I truly believe most people will go through life and never have any clue of if they don't have a meditation practice in their life.
Speaker 1:Very good. Well, that is our last question, as we've been talking. Is there something that you have forgotten to mention or a message that you would like to share with the listeners? The floor is yours.
Speaker 2:You know, I think the most important message if you're thinking about starting a meditation practice is really going through that list I mentioned earlier what is your why? And putting some heartfelt thought into it, understanding the importance of consistency, finding a guide. And if you do that and you stick with that practice, it'll be one of the best things you've ever done. And you know, I've seen it over and over again with hundreds, thousands of students and it's it's one of the best things you'll ever do for yourself.
Speaker 1:Beautiful, and let our listeners know the name of your two books again.
Speaker 2:The first book was how to meditate. My last book is the yielding warrior. Again, you can get that on my website the yielding warriorcom.
Speaker 1:Beautiful and you said that you have hundreds of instructional videos. Is that only available through your program or can that be found online?
Speaker 2:On my Yielding Warrior YouTube channel. There's a lot of free content there and through our social media outlets as well. However, the majority of it is in the online program, but there's probably a couple hundred videos of free content out there.
Speaker 1:Okay, so how long is the warrior program? How long is the training, if someone's interested.
Speaker 2:Well, I've got. You know, if somebody wanted to go there and go through everything that's in that program, it would probably take them 15 to 20 years to go through it all. I've got a lot of stuff up there. It's a very deep program. And then my teacher training program to get somebody through that course is an 18 month course.
Speaker 1:Okay, beautiful, beautiful, all right. Well, thank you, jeff, so much for taking time out of your very busy schedule to take this journey with me. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:All right, all right, my wonderful listeners. If you'd like your question featured on the podcast, reach out wwwreadysetreikicom. I'm Tracy Seawright and this has been Ready Set. Reiki © transcript Emily Beynon.
